Face the Stress of Success

Tax season lessons show success alone is no cure for stress.

Check the Stress-O-Meter, get the benchmarks.

by Rick Telberg
At Large

Just because you’re one of the best accountants in the business doesn’t mean you don’t lose sleep at night. In fact, achieving the highest level of performance in this profession can actually add to your worries, even as it adds to your bank account. Take a look, for example, at some of the data we’re examining from our Tax Season 2007 survey.

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Posted on April 29, 2007
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Looking Back at Busy Season 2007

Key Indicators: 39% stressed out; 53% call it a ‘worse’ season; but financial benchmarks look strong. What’s the story? Read the comments for some clues.

Looking back on the busy season, 39% of practitioners are reporting that they suffered at least “Frequent or Constant Stress,” including 11% who said they were “TOTALLY CRAZED!”

What’s cause of the stress?
Some comments:
>>>A few clients that were slow pay. Hired new employee with little tax prep experience
>>>As always, last minute clients dropping off records for 2006. Then, expecting us to complete it overnight. That is the only thing that seems stressful.
>>>Balancing work load, training, and client demand
>>>Change in Louisiana tax credit for Insurance
>>>client demands
>>>Client expectations/too much work
>>>Client pressure for completion of returns.
>>>Client that was overly demanding.
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Posted on April 29, 2007
Filed Under BSG RESEARCH | 2 Comments

Quiz: Can You Name 6 Out Of 6?

The late Charles Shulz was famous for being the creator of the comic strip “Peanuts.”

But he came up with a pair of little quizzes once that he used to put into perspective who the real heroes in our lives should be. Invest a minute or two in these two:

Here’s the first quiz:
1. Name the wealthiest person in the world.
2. Name the last Heisman trophy winner.
3. Name the last winners of the Miss America contest.
4. Name a person who won a recent Nobel Prize.
5. Name the last Academy Award winners for best actor and actress.
6. Name the last World Series winner.

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Posted on April 29, 2007
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Build, Buy (or Sell)?

It’s a seller’s market for CPA firms.

by John Ezell, CPA

Buying or selling a CPA practice is dramatically different today from 20 years ago, and it’s a seller’s market. In the ’80s an exiting owner was likely to sell to an interested younger CPA for a small percentage of fees over a five- or 10-year period. The current market is a lot more varied: Public companies and large firms swallow up small ones, independent firms merge to get big, and young professionals buy their first practices more often than build them. At the moment, that adds up to more potential buyers than owners interesting in selling.

Continue to the full article at the AICPA Journal of Accountancy… Read more

Posted on April 26, 2007
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COMMENT: John Tyler, CPA, about “Working Smarter, Not Harder”

A more specific way of describing “Working Smarter, Not Harder” would be to illustrate techniques for leveraging both professional skills and processes within an organization. For example, “How to use Excel as a text manager for task documentation, and document extraction.” An example: create your own checklist from a loan agreement.

John Tyler, CPA
Cambridge, Mass.
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Posted on April 24, 2007
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Tax Season 2007 Grinds to a Close

Did you feel ‘the stress of success?’

Check the Stress-O-Meter, get the benchmarks.

by Rick Telberg
At Large

Tax season is barely finished, but the postmortems have only just begun.

In the earliest, most preliminary, soundings from our (only slightly tongue-in-cheek) Stress-O-Meter poll, about twice as many practitioners are telling us that this year’s tax season was measurably more difficult than last year’s.

But stress ratings remained relatively unchanged, with about 32 percent reporting the highest levels of stress this year, compared with 30 percent last year.
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Posted on April 23, 2007
Filed Under BSG [CPA TRENDLINES] | 1 Comment

Tax Pracs Race to the April 17 Finish Line

Through the last Sunday of Tax Season 2007, practitioners raced to the close.

Preliminary data from our suvey of more than 1,000 professionals yield these highlights…

Stress Levels,
cum. thru April 15 2007

Some 30% of tax practitioners reported high stress levels at some point during the tax season through April 15.

Worse vs. Better,
cum. thru April 15 2007

Overall, 39% reported a worse tax season that the year before, with 30% reporting improvements, and 31% unchanged.

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Posted on April 21, 2007
Filed Under BSG [CPA TRENDLINES] | 2 Comments

AFP’s Keller to Lead CFP Board to New Offices in D.C.

DENVER (from the CFP Board) - Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc. (CFP Board), the professional regulatory body for the almost 55,000 professionals holding CFP® certification, announced today that it has named Kevin R. Keller, CAE, as its chief executive officer, effective May 1, 2007. He replaces Don I. Tharpe, Ph.D., who has served as interim CEO since November 2006.

Mr. Keller comes to CFP Board with considerable organizational management expertise, particularly in the area of certifications for financial professionals. Previously, Mr. Keller served for 16 years at the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP) and served for the last seven years as senior vice president and chief operating officer. At AFP, Mr. Keller had management responsibility for programs and services for the 16,000-member organization. He led the organization’s strategic planning process and enhanced and grew the Certified Treasury Professional credential.
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Posted on April 19, 2007
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War for Talent Goes Global

Recruiting takes on the look of marketing.

by Rick Telberg
On Careers

If you think finding and keeping good people is tough in the finance and accounting business, then you probably haven’t been reading the papers… or listening to clients.

Today, all businesses on a global scale, are reporting labor shortages. The shortage in professional talent is undermining growth opportunities across the globe, according to a survey of nearly 32,000 employers across 26 nations by the Manpower staffing agency. Some 29 percent of employers worldwide say they would be hiring more professionals if they could, and about the same number are also paying higher salaries than a year ago.

Other reports suggest that India, typically considered as the first choice in outsourced professional talent, is facing a looming crisis in talent, which could push the next wave of outsourcing into China. Maybe the world really is flat.

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Posted on April 18, 2007
Filed Under BSG FINANCE PROFESSIONAL | 1 Comment

E-mail Newsletters Highly Trusted by Small Biz

E-mail newsletters are one of the most important sources for business information and advice for small and midsize businesses, according to survey results published by Cambridge, Mass.-based Bredin Business Information. As reported by AICPA Custom Media… Read more

Posted on April 18, 2007
Filed Under BSG BUSINESS BUILDER | 1 Comment

Top 5 Small Biz Tax Worries

What do small-business clients worry most about when it comes to taxes?

The National Federation of Independent Business offers a few clues. Among all the provisions of the Federal Tax Code, small-business owners most frequently turn to tax practitioners for:
1. Depreciation,
2. Methods of accounting,
3. Amounts subject to self-employment tax,
4. Capital gain and losses, and
5. The Alternative Minimum Tax.

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Posted on April 18, 2007
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Job Seekers Get Only 10 Golden Minutes

Survey Finds Employers Form Opinions of Job Interviewees Within 10 Minutes

MENLO PARK, CA [Robert Half Finance & Accounting] — Hiring managers often know whether they might hire someone soon after the opening handshake and small talk, a new survey suggests. Executives polled said it takes them just 10 minutes to form an opinion of job seekers, despite meeting with staff-level applicants for 55 minutes and management-level candidates for 86 minutes, on average.

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Posted on April 16, 2007
Filed Under BSG FINANCE PROFESSIONAL | Leave a Comment

Tax Pro Filings Up 5% This Year

The number of returns prepared by tax professionals was running 5.4% ahead of last year through April 6, according to the IRS.

In all, tax practitioners had handled 44.2 million returns, out of the 61.3 million filed.

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Posted on April 16, 2007
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